In a typical software development environment, integrated development environment (IDE) tools, such as Rational Application User, are used to modify source code during application development cycles. IDE may run from a single user interface and permits the editing, compilation, and debugging of a computer program being developed from a common menu. Thus, an IDE allows a user to develop a computer program within a centralized environment. The IDE runs on a computerized system, including a computing device such as a personal computer, a laptop, a workstation, a mainframe, a mini-computer, or any other type of computing unit. Examples of IDEs include, but are not limited to, Eclipse®, ActiveState Komodo®, IntelliJ IDEA®, Oracle JUser®, NetBeans®, Microsoft Visual Studio®, Genuitec MyEclipse® and WinDev. Xcode® computer software programs. Computer program code for carrying out operations for the IDE may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java®, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages.
Many source code projects are now often developed by more than one user. The users may work on a same project together in one physical location, but the users may work while dispersed geographically and/or temporally. When dispersed, users can utilize a communication network and network based IDE tools for collaboration. These types of tools may operate across a network in a distributed fashion on each user's computer, and allow the users to communicate with each other while building each user's changes on a software project. In this environment, a user may check out a working copy of the source code from the source code control repository in a network, may create projects in a workspace, imports source code, and may resolve all dependent projects and libraries. This source code control repository may, for example, be a configuration management version control (CMVC) or a concurrent versioning system (CVS). After completing the changes, the users can commit their working copies to CMVC and CVS, typically in the implementation of a software project.
In this environment, the users can also create a separate version or a branch from a code base associated with the source code. As used herein, a main development stem of code base may be referred to as a trunk or a mainline. A fork of code base, perhaps corresponding to a previously released version, may be referred to as a branch. The branch may correspond to a previously released version of the code base. However, the users may also create a branch when they make long running changes to the code base, mainly because long-running changes are more likely to disrupt the development and build of the trunk. The users may also initiate a command to upload, also known as “commit command,” their working copies consisting of code changes to a version control system, where the version control system periodically merges the branches to the mainline of the source code. By this approach, the version control system verifies whether the merge was successful, and if not, notifies the users that a merge conflict occurred.